This invention relates to a child safety seat of the type comprising a seat body having a seat portion, a seat back and vertically extending side walls projecting forwardly from the side edges of the seat back and upwardly from the side edges of the seat portion at least in the region of the junction between the seat portion and the seat back, the side walls having belt guide openings adjacent to the junction between the seat portion and the seat back for receiving the lap portion of a vehicle seat belt by which the child seat may be secured in place on a vehicle seat, and a harness comprising shoulder straps secured to the seat back.
A child seat of this type is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,992,056. The openings for receiving the lap belt are in the form of closed apertures through which the belt has to be threaded. To simplify installation, it has been proposed to replace such openings by open-sided recesses. However, when such a seat is involved in an accident, the shoulder straps of the child harness apply a load to the seat back which tends to bend it forwards relative to the seat portion. Such recesses constitute a point of weakness where this bending force is concentrated. Accordingly, it is necessary to reinforce this region of the seat body thus increasing its overall weight. It is an object of the invention to provide a child seat of the type described above in which such reinforcement is unnecessary.
According to the invention, in a child seat of the type described above, characterised in that a respective access slot extends from each belt guide opening to the edge of the corresponding side wall and the seat body is adapted to deform so that the side walls of each access slot come into abutment with one another when a force is applied to the seat back in a direction to bend it towards the seat portion.